


Before the Storm

by arysteia



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Backstory, Drunk Sex, M/M, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-21
Updated: 2018-06-21
Packaged: 2019-05-17 13:36:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14833265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arysteia/pseuds/arysteia
Summary: The birth of Captain Flint.





	Before the Storm

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thedevilchicken](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/gifts).



> For thedevilchicken. This wound up nearer the bitter end of bittersweet than intended, but I really hope you enjoy it.

The first time James McGraw sailed into the harbour at Nassau on New Providence Island he thought it was the most beautiful place he'd ever seen. He'd come to love it more, and differently, over the years that followed, to truly consider it a home, to fight and bleed and be willing to die for it, but nothing ever matched that first sight of the beach, and the town beyond, and all the untapped possibility it represented. He didn't consider himself a romantic, far from it, but for a few moments standing there on the quarterdeck of the _Henrietta Maria_ he felt he truly understood what Thomas Hamilton had meant when he spoke of the New World as a gift.

The water was crystal clear – even at anchor half a mile from shore he fancied he could almost see the bottom – and more than that the _air_ was clear, none of the reek and filth and stench that heralded a return to London after months in the bracing freshness of the open sea, just smoke from the cooking fires on the beach, where men, presumably sailors from other ships, were barely visible going about their business, and perhaps the faintest imagined trace of sugar and rum from the factories inland. A well built stone fort overlooked the bay, but beneath it there was the merest scattering of permanent buildings, the Governor's Mansion chief among them, a handful of temporary shacks giving way to the camps on the beach, and a sense of novelty and its accompanying potential that was almost palpable.

His reverie was interrupted by Lieutenant Parker, his second in command on this voyage, coming to pay his respects and announce that all was in order, and the Captain's tender ready to put in for shore. There was considerable satisfaction in being addressed so, even if it was only as commander of a twenty gun sloop, and that in large part due to the Hamiltons' influence and Admiral Hennessey's continued patronage, and it further bolstered his good mood. The roster for shore leave having been worked out with minimal complaint from those left on first watch, he climbed into the boat and was rowed to shore.

Those men at liberty disappeared as soon as their feet touched sand, off to find a tavern or a brothel – the town was not so new as all _that_ – leaving him and Parker standing there somewhat awkwardly. He supposed he ought to stand the lieutenant a drink before letting him go his own way; he had been an efficient and capable second on the voyage, polite and respectful, and in no way suggesting by word or action that he found it strange to have a lieutenant with less seniority, and a broader accent, than himself in command. In any case, tomorrow was soon enough to call on the governor and request the audience Lord Hamilton had written to arrange.

All eyes turned to look at them as they entered what he had judged, perhaps in error, to be the most salubrious of the establishments on the main thoroughfare. Certainly they were conspicuous in their uniforms in a way that the men would not have been in their sailors' slops, but he had not expected to be such a wonder as to bring conversation to a halt as they so clearly had. When it resumed it was in furious whispers, the kind that portended ill on board ship, and it was enough to make him rethink his plan to take a room on shore for the duration of their stay in Nassau. Governor Thompson's control of the town was perhaps more nominal than they had realised, from the safe remove of London, or the implication of his dispatches.

The proprietor brought them a flagon of ale which they drank quickly, and the niceties completed, Parker excused himself about his own business. James let him go, thankful for a moment to himself after six weeks living cheek by jowl, something which would never have bothered him in the past but had been hard to get used to again after so long ashore. The six months he'd served as Admiralty liaison to the Hamilton family had been the longest period he'd spent on land since he was a boy, and while part of him had chafed to get back to sea, another part had begun to enjoy it very much.

He beckoned for another flagon, and attempted a surreptitious survey of the room. It was not so different from any other tavern he'd visited, whether at home or abroad, and if some of its denizens were in fact the very pirates they had laboured over for so long it was hard to tell at first glance, except, perhaps, for a certain flamboyance in dress. Certainly the customers of this inn looked wealthier, en masse, than those of other establishments they had passed, some of them clearly farmers and merchants, as well as seamen, and none of his own crew thankfully to be seen. The various groups had resumed their interrupted conversations, and at a more normal volume, so perhaps his caution had been misplaced after all.

It was, therefore, a surprise when instead of the tavern proprietor bringing his ale, a young man dumped the flagon on the table messily, the splash narrowly missing his cuffs. He looked up, annoyed, and was ready to remonstrate with him for his clumsiness, but was momentarily taken aback as the man pulled out Parker's vacated chair and sat down without invitation.

"What's Her Majesty's Navy doing in town?" he asked.

"Not answering to the likes of you," James answered curtly, hand shifting to the hilt of his sword under the table.

The man laughed, and leaned back in his chair. He poured himself a drink, not hesitating at using Parker's abandoned cup, and raised it in ironic salute before tossing half of it back in one draught. "Fair enough," he said affably, but made no move to leave.

James looked at him more closely. He was young, perhaps five years younger than he was himself, and handsome in a wild, sunburnt sort of way, piercing grey blue eyes above broad cheekbones, the sort who might well have caught his eye in the past. The slouch of his body was superficially inviting, but there was a coiled tension beneath the carefully feigned relaxation.

"Is there something you want?" he asked tersely.

The man shrugged. "I don't know, you're the one who's new in town. Is there something _you_ want?" The leer on his face was unmistakeable.

"No," James said coldly, ashamed of himself for succumbing to even a moment's temptation. "I should be going."

"That's a shame," the man said, and his posture shifted in the blink of an eye, suddenly all business. "But also a good idea. You should get back to your ship."

The veiled threat in his voice was clear, and while James' first instinct was to argue, there was no mistaking the fact that he was very much at a disadvantage, alone in this strange place. Even if he could find his officers at this point in the night's proceedings, there was little two lieutenants and a few midshipmen could do in the face of determined resistance, and they knew neither the lay of the land nor the allegiance of the people. His duty was to the ship and to his mission, and it would do neither any good to be drawn into a tavern brawl, or worse, over a very minor offence. More than that, for the first time in his life he had something and someone waiting at home that he very much wanted to get back to, and it tamed, for once, the savage beast inside him. He nodded with a confidence he didn't feel, tossed a few coins on the table, and left.

There was a clear panic rising in the street as he made his way back towards the beach, the well to do hurrying to be safely indoors, the press of the crowd seething with an ill suppressed excitement, and it was with a real sense of relief that he met Parker at the moored boat, the sailors assigned to it still present and sober.

"What's happened?" he asked quickly.

"Governor Thompson has fled," Parker said quickly. "It's the talk of the-" He coughed in embarrassment, and James waved at him to continue, no need for false modesty. "Of the establishment," he demurred. "The patrons were a lot less polite when I walked in than those at the tavern."

"You've ordered the men fetched back?" James asked. Not that it would do any good; most of them would already be insensible, if they could even be found.

Parker nodded, and they climbed into the boat, and the oarsmen got underway. By the time they reached the ship there were buildings well ablaze on the outskirts of the town, and the noise of the rising mob was unmistakeable even at a distance. He stood watch himself that night, braced for any attempt to assault the ship, but there was none. By morning the liberty men were back, not much the worse for wear, but they bore with them tales of murder and mayhem: the governor's family dead, the man himself fled in terror and disgrace, the pirates – for who else could be responsible? – in control of the town and beginning to occupy the fort.

They set sail on the first tide, with as many provisions as the crew left on duty had already managed to get aboard, and while the mood was rightly subdued, James found himself more, not less, convinced that Nassau, and its people, was worth saving. The sheer violence and brutality of the pirate ringleaders was worthy of condemnation, but they were but one small part of the community, and his anger at their utter greed and stupidity, frustrating all their plans when Thomas had worked so hard to save them, did not extend to the rest. There had been women and children caught up in the mob, and they deserved their fate no more than Thompson's wife and son had.

* * *

The second and last time James McGraw sailed into Nassau was very different. His whole life had been upended in just a matter of days, days that had begun so joyously, being reunited with Thomas and Miranda, and ended so viciously, his hopes dashed, his ambitions thwarted, his very heart shattered. The journey was excruciating, unsettling and unpleasant to travel as a passenger rather than a ship's officer, plagued with ill weather that extended the crossing, and with nothing to look forward to at its end.

Miranda lay in her hammock for most of the two months at sea and wept. In his own despair and self disgust, Admiral Hennessey's harsh words still ringing in his ears, James found himself wishing that a storm might take them all to the bottom, and it seemed likely enough at times with the questionable competence of the crew, but such an outcome would leave Thomas in Bedlam without hope of rescue, and that was a thought not to be borne. There was his promise, too, to think of, that he would take care of Miranda, and though they could barely speak to each other without recrimination, he knew he could not break it.

In time, however, he found his despondency giving way to a more customary rage. He was a capable man, a man of action, and the Admiralty had made a terrible mistake. _Lord Alfred Hamilton_ had made a terrible mistake. The Earl might be a master of politics and manipulation, but he clearly had no head for strategy. If he had thought beyond the momentary satisfaction of seeing James humiliated and Miranda disgraced, he should have had James murdered before seizing Thomas, a thing his wealth and lack of scruples would easily have accomplished, but he had thought too highly of himself and his own schemes, and too little of James. He had made the contempt he held for his own son very clear, and just as he had been blind to Thomas' true qualities, so it was with James. He would soon live to regret it, of that James was certain.

Peter Ashe had been generous with them. Thwarted in his desire to provide a home and introductions for them on the continent, he had instead opened his purse. It rankled to accept his charity, but he had been a good friend of Thomas', and of them all. Miranda had taken only clothes and a few scant possessions from the house in London: books and some small items of jewellery that had been personal gifts from Thomas rather than family heirlooms. James took nothing at all. What would have been a modest sum in London was more than enough to purchase a small farmhouse and a plot of land, a safe distance from town, and while it was nothing in comparison to the Hamiltons' residence in London, nonetheless it would suffice. They would only live in it a short while, after all, or so he thought.

Looking back later, there were many things he, too, should have done differently.

As it was, though, sailing into Nassau harbour a second time, at the prow instead of on the quarterdeck, Miranda at his side, he saw a place of refuge, rather than a place to be rescued, but no less potential. Nassau was a place where hurt, angry people settled, and there was no one more hurt and angry than them. But it was also a place where capable, ambitious people came together, people who wanted more out of life than their lot had allowed. People who could help him achieve his goals, and who they would be able to help in turn. Thomas would never be governor now, but James would still see his dream fulfilled.

* * *

The first few times he rode into town he made a point of being quiet, cautious, observing rather than observed. The change in the place was obvious – there was still money flowing freely but the farmers and planters of the interior no longer visited, and even the merchants whose business kept them there made sure not to be abroad after dark. The clientele of the taverns was more obviously made up of men who recognised little law but their own, and even the one he had visited last time had fallen into disrepair, paint fading and broken shutters hanging askew.

He spent more time in the taverns than he should, and in truth it was a relief. Being at home with Miranda was a torture to them both. Every moment they were in the same room together it rang with the echo of voices unheard. They loved each other, truly and deeply, but they'd each loved Thomas more. Even in London he'd been unaccustomed to spending this much time on land, always itching to get back on board ship and out to sea, but now it was even worse. The Hamiltons' residence had been the one house he'd ever felt at home in, willing to spend hours abed, or reading in the library, but it was the people that had made it so.

He witnessed many an argument, fistfight, and on one memorable occasion a shooting, those first weeks, as he watched and waited to figure out who to approach with his plan. Hal Gates was a bluff, hearty seaman of advancing age and girth, who had a reputation for honesty – such as it was in this place where honesty meant stabbing you in the front rather than the back – and was well liked by all the crews that gathered here, not just his own. Rumour had it that the ship he served on as quartermaster was in need of a new captain, and had suffered losses heavy enough in its last engagement that the position was unlikely to be filled from its own complement.

Gates allowed him to buy him a drink and introduce himself, and listened politely, though with growing suspicion, as he laid out his plan.

"You want my crew, a crew of pirates already destined for the gibbet, to sail all the way back to England and up the bloody Thames?" he demanded, before bursting out laughing. "Are you mad, or just daft?"

James gritted his teeth and tried to remain patient.

"And what are you going to pay us with, assuming we pull off this feat of sailing and abduction?" Gates went on. "Do you _have_ any money, or are we supposed to trust that this imprisoned nobleman of yours will be not only willing but able to lay hands on a fortune? Pirate crews take equal shares, not like your Navy prizes."

So he had recognised him. It wasn't really surprising, and it didn't matter. He had no family to endanger, and his name was already disgraced. "I have money," he said. "And I can get more." He would beg Peter Ashe if he had to. He had very little pride left.

Gates sighed. "I don't think my crew's the one for you. At least not in the shape it is now. If you were willing to sail with us a few months first, maybe. Prove your skills as a captain, and let them get their confidence back."

"I'm not looking to take up a life of piracy," James said, struggling to keep a hold of his temper. "I just want this one thing."

"And I want to retire old and fat and rich, and spend the rest of my life being waited on hand and foot," Gates said. "But neither of us are likely to get it, are we? Maybe the fat. And meanwhile, my duty is to my crew. I swore to put their interests first, not whatever mad bastard came along promising castles in the sky."

"All right," James agreed.

Gates sighed. "You should speak to Charles Vane. He's just broken with bloody Blackbeard, and ordered him off his own island, because a girl asked him to, which means he's as mad as you are. He might think it was good sport, attacking a madhouse and letting all the loonies out. If you can persuade him and a few of his friends to do the actual storming, I could probably persuade my crew to do the sailing."

"Where do I find him?"

* * *

Convinced to wait till morning, and not to attempt to rouse Vane out of whatever bed he'd fallen into that night, James felt a spirit of hope he hadn't known in months. There were many finer points still to work out: should they bribe or terrorise the governor of Bethlem, threaten his wife and children, if he had them, or simply abduct him and force his compliance? None of the options appealed, but it had been almost six months already, and the thought of Thomas, gentle, sweet Thomas, in such a place was enough to overcome his hesitation. Perhaps he could make contact with Thomas' brother instead? But there was no way of knowing if he took after his brother or their father, and as the next in order of inheritance he could not be trusted, even if he could be found. No, the governor it would have to be.

It should not, perhaps, have been a surprise when he was introduced to Charles Vane the next day, to realise he was the same man who had warned him to be on his way the previous year. He shook hands with Gates, and agreed to sit down with James and listen to what he had to say. He started laughing much more quickly than Gates had, but soon stopped when James handed him the last of the money Peter had given him as an inducement. It was all the money they had left, but if it came to it they could live off the land for a while.

Vane poured scorn on his preliminary planning, disagreeing on a dozen points, some reasonable and some seemingly just to be contrary, but when James began to lose his temper he surprised him again by offering intelligent suggestions of his own. At last he agreed to come on the expedition, and to furnish a half dozen reliable men who he was prepared to vouch for. Reliable probably meant cold blooded killers, but time was of the essence, and if they got the job done then so be it. The kind of men who would run a lunatic asylum and display its occupants like some sort of menagerie could not be such very good souls themselves. Gates agreed to convey them to London, and take no part in any fighting, for a fixed price to be paid in advance.

Another month passed, as they planned for the various contingencies involved in attacking a well fortified hospital in the heart of London, and at last it seemed they had covered all likely eventualities. He and Vane become friends, of a sort, or at least it was possible for them to enjoy being in each other's presence. Vane had a wicked sense of humour, and could be good company when he chose to be. He still flirted from time to time, when he was out of his lady's good graces – she was a beautiful young woman, the daughter of one of the most prominent local merchants, and while she seemed to return his affections, more than anything she refused to be tied down. She had thrown off her father's control, and was no more inclined to submit to her lover's. James took no offence, and if Vane suspected the true nature of his relationship with the object of all their plotting, he was wise enough never to mention it.

Everything came crashing down one evening when they were almost ready to act. James returned home to see Miranda for the first time in some while, his rising spirits overcoming the resentment that had kept him away. He expected to be greeted with anger – he knew he'd been selfish, leaving her to her own misery, while he at least had the enterprise to distract him - but instead he found her seated by a dying fire, crumpled letter forgotten in her hands.

"Miranda?" he asked. "What's happened?"

She handed him the letter, and he smoothed it out and held it up to the light. It was from Peter Ashe, and its words fell like a hammer blow. _I write with regret... My deepest sympathies... Dead by his own hand._ He had to read it twice to be sure of its meaning, and even then it felt like something from a nightmare. It was impossible to imagine Thomas so desperate, but then it was equally impossible to imagine him in such a place - alone, lost, without his friends, or his books, or his fine clothes, or any of the things that had made life worth living - and God only knew what Lord Alfred had told him about James and Miranda, but the very best that could be assumed was that they'd left as instructed and he would never see them again.

James had told himself, all these long months, that surely Thomas _knew_ he would return to free him, but in truth there was no reason to believe such a thing. It had been a salve for his own conscience, and the deep, gnawing shame that consumed him for having left England at all, rather than fighting to the end, even if it meant his own death. He hated Miranda in that moment, both for persuading him to leave, and for being an anchor round his neck, inexorably chaining him to this life, his vow to protect her a poisonous thing, strangling the real love he'd borne her. She hated him too, he could see it in her face, and she was right to. She'd tried to warn him, tried to warn them both, but they'd been so caught up in their own romance that they'd ignored her. He, especially, who should have been the sensible one, who she'd begged to protect Thomas, and instead he'd doomed him. Doomed them all.

He dropped the crumpled letter and walked back out of the house. She didn't follow, didn't call after him, and he knew that whatever happened they would never forgive each other. He rode back to town, went deliberately to the cheapest, roughest drinking establishment, and proceeded to drink wildly into the night. It wasn't long before a fight started, and he could feel the _thing_ inside him, the thing that Admiral Hennessey had spoken of with fear and loathing, uncurl. Every blow he gave felt good, but every blow he took felt even better. He felt his nose break, and his lips split, and he spat out the blood and kept fighting.

At some point Vane walked in and tried to drag him off whoever he was fighting, he didn't even recognise them by then, and he punched him too. It caught him on the jaw and rocked his head back, and Charles Vane was no man to take that sort of behaviour, even if they were mostly friends by now, and he swung back, and he was younger than James, and mostly sober, and more to the point hadn't already fought a dozen men. He put him down hard and fast, and every blow felt like absolution. He made it clear that no one else was to get involved, laying out one man foolish enough to try with a single vicious punch, and then he hauled James up the stairs to an unoccupied room.

He tried to talk to him, but James was not interested in talking. He'd waited and hoped and dreamed of Thomas for eight long months and now there was no Thomas, there would never be any Thomas, ever again. So they split another bottle of rum, and then Vane said, oddly gently, "Is it your friend? Word from London?" What else _could_ it be? He wasn't stupid, and he'd never met Miranda, what else was there?

Just the thought of it, of being _known_ by this man, in this place, made James furious all over again, and he lurched up out of the chair Vane had manhandled him into, and swung at him wildly, and Vane didn't even swing back this time, just pushed him away so he tripped over his own feet and fell into an ungainly sprawl at Vane's. He pulled himself up using the arms of the chair as support, but his own arms gave and he found himself falling into Vane's lap. Vane's hand moved to push him off, but hesitated, falling instead on his shoulder, and he stayed there for a few long moments with his head on Vane's leg, just breathing wetly and trying not to choke on the pain and rage and anguish crawling its way up his throat.

Vane shifted uncomfortably, at last, and James realised he was hard inside his trousers, and whether it was apology or desire to provoke another beating, or simple desire to be touched after all, he shifted to mouth at him through the leather. Vane's hand clenched on his shoulder, and for a moment it seemed he might push him off again, but then he relaxed with a great sigh, fingers curling in the hair at the nape of James' neck.

James fumbled at his belt with bruised fingers, and Vane shifted to let him pull his trousers down just far enough to free his cock. It was nothing like the last time he'd been with Thomas, and that was right, that was what he wanted, no gentleness or soft touches or whispered words of love. He took the head in his mouth and sucked hard, and at Vane's throaty moan he shifted onto his knees, leaned over him, and swallowed him down deep. Vane's cock was thick, and it was hard to get his mouth around all of it, and the cracks in his broken lips split open again and the taste of his own blood mixed with the salt and sweat of Vane's skin, and it was exactly what he wanted, what he deserved.

The head of Vane's cock hit the back of his throat, making him gag, and he pulled off a little; it was hard enough to breathe through his broken nose without adding choking to the mix. Vane laughed at that, low and nasty, and James punched at him weakly, and then Vane was coming, a sudden rush that he couldn't swallow fast enough, and he coughed it all up again, a bloody mess of spit and semen and whatever was running out of his nose and eyes. Vane stopped laughing, and stroked his thumb along one bruised cheekbone, before pulling him up to kiss him deeply, disgusting mess and all.

That was too much, and he pushed clumsily to his feet, staggering back a few steps and pulling his shirt up to wipe off his face. When he was done Vane was still sitting there, watching him warily, making no move to put himself to rights, cock still visible through his open trousers, and barely softening.

James pulled his shirt off fully, and threw it on the floor, then moved to unfasten the placket of his own breeches and push them down. They caught on the tops of his boots, and he sat down heavily on the end of the bed.

"You're going to regret this," Vane said, but he got up out of his chair anyway, and pulled James' boots off and tossed them into a corner, then bent to shuck his own.

James shrugged, and rolled onto his stomach, spreading his legs and burying his face in the filthy pillow case. The mattress dipped a moment later as Vane climbed up behind him, and it was a shock to feel the bare skin of his chest against his back, the heavy muscle of his thighs as he kneed James' legs further apart and settled between them. He didn't say anything else, and his hands were purposeful but not exactly rough as he stroked down James' spine and into his cleft. His fingers were slippery with something, God knew what and James didn't care, as two at once thrust into him.

His cock followed a moment later, and it was much bigger than his fingers, the stretch and burn of it enough to distract from the litany of all his other aches and pains, and then the whole length was inside him making him gasp, and Vane's full weight was on him, crushing him into the bed, and he wrapped his fingers around the rusted bars of the headboard, and clenched his eyes closed tight, and bit his lip against the cry that wanted to emerge, and tried to forget that he had ever known anything else. Vane pounded into him hard and fast, deep coring thrusts alternating with shorter ones to no particular rhythm, such that he could never brace for it, and it was, at last, just what he needed to stop thinking of blond hair and blue eyes and a smile he would never see again.

Vane's hand crept underneath him, and sure enough, his own cock was hard when his fingers wrapped around him, though he hadn't really noticed it happening. Vane stripped him hard, in concert with his thrusts, and it barely took six strokes before he was coming into Vane's hand, and Vane smeared it wetly across his belly before pressing down on his shoulders with both hands and fucking him even harder. He was vaguely aware that it was starting to hurt again, and that he couldn't breathe, but any sense of concern about it seemed very far away indeed, and by the time Vane came again, hot and wet inside him, he was almost asleep.

* * *

When he woke up the next morning, Vane was gone, and he was alone in the blood stained, wrecked room. It seemed to him that the only thing left to do was to kill Alfred Hamilton, and for that probably the best thing was to take Gates up on his offer. The _Walrus_ had been through three captains in the months since they'd first spoken, and none of them had been able to restore her fortunes. It was hard to imagine, now, what his qualms had been. The whole world was his enemy, and so he would be an enemy to the world.

The first time James Flint sailed into the harbour at Nassau it was as the captain of a pirate ship. He knew the place well by then, loved it and hated it in equal measure, but still saw in it a potential that very few others could see. If the vision he had for it was originally someone else's, no one but Miranda knew, and while they had reconciled after that awful night, and he loved her as much as he always had, they didn't speak about Thomas, a festering silence growing between them over the years. His one lasting regret was that it had cost him Charles Vane's friendship to find his true self, and that it would be a decade before they learned to trust each other again.


End file.
